


All-Pervading Corruption

by SassafrassRex (Serbajean)



Series: Purchased, Traded, Wagered, Won [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A perhaps disproportionate amount of laughter, A tiny hint of existentialism-ish-ness-itality, Abuse, Dreams, Gen or Pre-Slash, Manipulation, Maybe pre-shippy if you squint, Okay I lied there'sANGST, Only a teensy bit of violence, Pre-Voltron, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, Shiro's POV so fairly composed, Speculative, Very Brief Mention of Suicidal Ideation, Your S/O should be your best friend anyway, description of extensive non-consensual body modification, does not end on an upnote, globetrotter shiro, world-building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-21 22:19:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8262385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serbajean/pseuds/SassafrassRex
Summary: How long must a man bear a yoke, before he forgets how to walk on his own?And who or what was it that pushed Shiro to stand up and run?Follows after Nobody Learns





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So. [Twiddles thumbs] Apparently, this... oddness is what I thought was plausible for Voltron, waaaaay back in summer, before Tumblr took it over (hail to the Tumbles!)  
> It's not a particularly /new/ premise... Plenty of other shows/book series have definitely done it.  
> Meh. Evidently, I did not care. Evidently, I still don't care. Moving right along.

 

 

A new ship, with a new crew. Research class; one of many tasked with the never-slowing advancement of an empire. This one, he knew, ranked among the upper echelons of its cohort. Cutting edge, in every sense. She had some manner of short-term business here, and _why_ or  _for how long_ ought not to be any concern of his. He couldn't say why,  but this ship made him uneasy.

One single step onboard, and a dull brontide unfurled beneath his feet. When the bay doors shut, he felt the breeze lasted a hair too long. His shoulder blades itched but he kept his eyes forward. And upon greeting the ship’s vessel AI and premier staff, something strange jarred him. Some gentle tug, with no source he could see. Gentle, but it didn’t fade. 

It kept him awake the first night, and it nearly cost him his practice on the second morning (when the construct faded and he blinked his way back, the quiet look on her face made shame twist tight). He worked all the harder on the third day. Stubbornly ignored the distraction on the fourth. Decided that he’d no longer tolerate it on the fifth.

That fifth evening, upon dismissal, he went searching.

Aboard this ship, it verged on comical how wide a berth he was given. A strange, unremarkable little alien with a false hand. And yet, many tall, strong soldiers moved aside when he was walking. Because of who he was, because of whom he served.

More than once he deliberately veered towards one side or another. Just to watch them shift course around him and try to pretend they didn’t.

Her name draped around his shoulders like a mantle, and few wanted to be anywhere near that.

Whenever he shut his eyes, he saw it. The many threads of her magic, in bright, shimmering violet. Still just as vivid as on the day she’d first laid them down and woven them in a mesh. He glimpsed them every time he blinked. Every time he slept. Her sign upon him, glaringly apparent to any Galra that happened to look.

But she was not the problem. The soldiers, who glared, smiled, stared, or shifted away, were not the problem. The problem—

—was right behind that door up ahead of him. He made his way to it, still drawn by the faint droning in his ears and the itch under his feet. He let himself in (she often told him not to snoop, but she’d never actually done anything to impede his access. Half the time, his impetuousness made her smile, the other half—) but found only the main terminal for the vessel AI. A small room, awash in deep red lighting, full of towers, processors, storage. Two sharp-edged crystals gently pulsed near the wall. The lights muddied their natural color, turning them black and sinister. The whole place hummed.

He’d followed his own feet, and this is where they’d brought him? Why? What had bothered him about this?

“You’re here.”

He didn’t startle. The voice came from behind him, but he knew perfectly well that that space was empty.

He didn’t respond either. He’d come here to learn answers, not to give them. That voice tickled something at the back of his mind and he rather wanted to hear more.

“I started prodding as soon as you arrived.” Yes, it was familiar. “I noticed how I kept you awake with it. Honestly, I expected you to come sooner.”

Paying it no outward heed, he roved over the clutter in front of him. The beating heart of imperial progress. This imposing, haphazard mess was the seat of every ongoing project aboard this ship. Where hypotheses and raw data were processed into answers and into the beginnings of technological advancement. Is was useful to her, certainly. But to him? Why would he have been drawn down here?

A large panel caught his eye, far in the corner. He went to draw it back.

The voice barked at him, a sharp rebuke. He didn’t understand that word it said, but from the cadence, he thought it was likely a curse. The volume of it was concerning; enough so that he jerked back and raised a bright fist in warning. He could shred everything in here, if he had a mind to (never bother that she would likely skin him alive for it).

Sounding unafraid (and rather prickly for an AI), it insisted, “Don’t touch that.” Familiar, it was familiar. Perhaps the words weren’t but the voice certainly was.

He growled, “Why not?”

“It’s mine—” and it called him that word again.

How a creature that  _wasn’t_  purported to lay claim to anything at all, was beyond him. Still, he wondered at this voice. A tutor? A worker? He didn’t know terribly many people but he knew this voice.

He let his hands drop back to his sides. “You’re no vessel AI, are you?”

“I’m no AI at all.”

He didn’t bother to be curious over that. A once-living AI taking issue with his (now  _its_ ) new station. Expressing denial. It would hardly be the first to do so.

Or maybe not. This was a research ship after all, and he knew very little about it. Perhaps, as it claimed, it really _wasn’t_ an AI. Perhaps it was indeed a living being, who worked all this madness remotely. Not a priority either way. He was looking to find out _whom_ , not what.

“Who are you?” How long, he wondered, would he be made to wait for his answer?

It started. Then stopped. Then repeated that word. Maybe it wasn’t a curse. Not that he cared. It had stopped enunciating it like one. Now, it just sounded perplexed.

Though if it was going to keep up the repetition, he would consider it courtesy to explain. And preferably, it could explain all the rest of this as well. Unsurprisingly, he rather misliked waiting in ignorance while a maybe-computer called him names.

“You’re more different than I thought you’d be.” Oh? Better or worse? Oftentimes, the people he met seemed to have already formed their expectations about him.

He rarely fell short, these days.

“I’ve missed you.” And it sounded adamant. As though he’d capitulate, and admit to knowledge that he didn’t have, if it only pushed him enough. “But I suppose you don’t really understand that.”

That irked him somewhat. If he understood, would he still be here? He could only hear words without context. Colored with disappointment and a touch of anger. Meaningless. Nothing to do with him.

He stayed quiet, hoping it would give away more if he just let it. But instead it paused and then, “Step here,” it ordered. A lit circle appeared on the floor.

Still leery of this (demonstrably capricious) individual, “Why?”

“It’s one of my better analysis ports. I want a closer look at you.”

Was that so? Well, he wanted his answers. Still, he stepped forward and let it scan him.

“Yes, you actually are different. I didn’t realize. I suppose I thought it was something you put on for them.” He had disappointed it somehow. “Stupid of me.”

He pulled a deep breath in and let it huff out. He was patient, by nature. Quite patient. But he had to be getting back at some point. He would need to greet her when she came to see him. Having been content to observe thus far, he plainly asked, “Why do I know you? Why is your voice familiar?”

Folding his arms, he waited. _Now_. Answers please, so he could be on his way.

The red lights may have dimmed at that. But if so, they then wavered and brightened right back, “I’m your friend. I’ve _been_ your friend. I don’t know how, but you forgot me.”

He might have, he supposed. “Or maybe I dreamt you.” He could be dreaming still. He had all sorts of strange dreams.

“But I think you’re awake.” The voice drew level. “If anything… when I first saw you on this ship, I wondered if  _I_  had dreamt you.”

But he realised he'd just heard something else important.

Quite important, in fact. He was surprised it took him so long to notice it. Mildly, he asked, “Are you dying?”

“What?”

“Are you?”

A pause. “I’m not.”

Odd. He looked around, as though he could confirm it from the detritus sprawled about him. Absently, he began to scratch at the inside of his wrist. “Are you certain?”

“What makes you think I am?”

“You sound like you are. I hear it when you speak.” Should he not? Was it not for him to know that? He shrugged, “You sound the way things sound when they’re dying.” It did, yes. He imagined it would look it as well, had it the capacity to look like anything.

“What’s the sound?” The curious words didn’t suit the tone. Now that he was listening, he wondered how he’d missed it before. “And what do you know about it?”

“Oh, I know.” He’d heard quite a lot of it. It wasn’t really worth describing but,

“Edged,” he tried, while he dug grit out of the seam between his wrist and hand. “Thinned.” Flat but _more._ “It always is, when people decide to die.”

“It’s a decision?”

Of course. And everyone chose the same. “When they decide it’s over.” Strange, he thought, to have to explain something so simple. “Or that they can’t fight anymore. They’ve bled too much or it hurts too much.”  _Can’t breathe. Can’t move away fast enough and everything turns too dark_. “You can always hear it.” At the least, he always did. Sometimes just for the barest instant, before they were gone. When the end came, everyone eventually resolved to it, even if only at the very last. But he always heard. He’d learned to pick up on those sorts of things.

“Well, I’m not injured. I don’t bleed and I can’t starve.”

He pondered that, inspecting the grease and dirt and whatever else he’d worked out of the crevices in his wrist. “Would you like me to kill you?”

He’d played mercy killer before. People can hurt, pain can become too much. He understood that. Some are weaker than others, and things that are dying ought to be permitted to do so.

He had never minded giving that to them. He wouldn’t mind now. She shouldn’t mind either, if he did it right.

The strange thing took a long time to answer. “Yes.” He (evidently not  _it_  after all; though why  _he?_ ) sounded tentative.

“Actually, I think I would.” Tentative and rather sad.

Though the melancholy then slid away. “But not yet. Not while you still don’t know.”

Fair enough. He didn’t particularly want to kill it (no, _him_ ) before finding out either.

“But where to begin? I’ve watched you. I have eyes everywhere. I’ve seen that woman who—”

“Don’t talk about her.”

Then the voice didn’t talk at all. He had cleaned the grime from the beds of two of five nails before anything else was said. He wondered if he’d ever get those answers.  _Be patient, there’s time._

“But I _have_ seen you. At work. Doing things that I didn’t think you’d ever do. I _did_ realize you’re not right.”

Not right?

“I still hoped you’d know me.”

He should. Something was missing that he should have with him. Something that this (admittedly somewhat irritating) prompting was meant to dredge up. But from where? When could they have met?

“Do you even know  _you_?”

His head tilted and his hackles rose just a little.

Undeterred, it pressed, “Do you know your name?”

He scoffed harshly. Most days, he rather tried not to. “I know my station.” His purpose. Better to know that, since names were empty. Valuable only to the druids, who could use them to rend a man to shreds (their own, they guarded fiercely. All of them but her, who had nothing to fear from anyone). He had his station. He was contented enough with his work and his reason.

“Yes, I know you do:  _Champion_.” It wasn’t often he heard it colored with disapproval like that. “I also have a station. All around, this here is my station.” Ports, towers, crystals. Red-tinted, wall-spanning chaos. “But I have a name also.” Why?

“And I have people who know it. I have a home, far from here.”  _Do you?_

He didn’t want a name. His patience ran out, and he turned and left.

* * *

But he was back soon after. She was directing a project she hadn’t deigned to explain to him, so he had more time to himself than he was used to (but she always wanted him independent anyway.  _“Go on, you’re no mewling infant,” she laughed at him. “And you know better than to do wrong.”_ ) So he was back again.

As he entered he was greeted with, “Where do you come from?”

He snarled, almost without meaning to. She sometimes encouraged him to drop her name when he was hassled. Anyone with eyes could see whose he was. But some needed reminding and the idea rather amused her. “My patroness is the lady, Haggar.”  _The Defiler_. Nine times of every ten, that was enough to earn him his way. The tenth time often became violent (all the better, according to her). “You already know that.”

“Before you were hers?”

Very few ever kept asking after he named her. Before he was hers. Before he—

“Horrors.”

“Horrors?”

He let it slide back down—black and oilslick, it rested in the furthest corners of him—and didn’t elaborate. It was done and gone (maybe someday he’d clean it all out). It didn’t matter. Not at all. He wasn’t ever going back anyway. He _wasn’t_. She was his guarantor, so it didn’t matter.

“Before _that?_ ”

He felt far too brittle, just for having thought it (but _someday_ ). He wondered, had anything else mattered, before he was hers? But he shook his head,  _Don’t be stupid._

Before that. Of course there had been a before that.

Before.

And it  _was_ stupid, but the thoughts were somehow reluctant. Like drawing fine spinnings through heavy mud. His memory felt stiff. Strangely out-of-practice.

Irritated, he gave his head a shake. He wasn’t deficient. “It was the arena before that.” Yes, that was back when he’d been at the arena all the time, instead of just the visits when she wanted to show him off. Back when he’d lived there. Of course. He remembered just fine. “I executed people.”

The prodding was wary. “For crimes?”

“For—” what even was the reason? “—fun” That was a question, and it shouldn’t have been a question.

Wary, and also surprisingly tentative, “Your fun?”

“No.”

“Whose?”

“The—” and whose had it been? Emperor Zarkon? The lady? The crowd? “—Galra,” he settled, shrugging.

He’d entertained.

* * *

He’d had friends at the arena, he recalled. His own friends. Half-a-dozen half-finished faces smiled at him. Some did so with mouths, some with chelicerae, some with only eyes. He heard a small, tremulous voice singing, as though to him. As though  _for_  him. 

He couldn’t remember all of who they were. He’d killed most of them. It had been too long since he’d given them thought.

But people forget things, that wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t deficient. It wasn’t important anymore, so he just forgot it. People forget things.

Still.

Still, he was thinking of them now, so why weren’t they appearing? Their faces remained indistinct, though he recalled interacting with them. All the time. He knew he had cared for each of them. Thread drawn through mud. Tug too hard and it snaps.

He’d have to go back again.

* * *

“Before the arena, what were you?”

And it wasn’t as though he didn’t remember. Of course he did. He knew where he was born, he knew—but it wouldn’t appear. He knew it all, but he didn’t seem to know anything. It was right at the edge of his awareness, laughing at him while he couldn’t reach it.

Like when he dreamt. Maybe he  _was_  dreaming, and that was why this didn’t make sense. Maybe _she_ was the one laughing. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d spun him round and left him bewildered.

He glanced around from where he knelt on the floor. Perhaps he would find her hiding, if he only looked again.

But she wasn’t there.

So, if he wasn’t dreaming, then this was a problem. Summoning the arena to mind had been difficult enough. But before the arena? Before the displays… He waited for the right thoughts to come to him, but all he saw was _more_ arena. Dread, and more arena, and the lady, Haggar. His frustration mounted.

Stupid. He was grown, wasn’t he? So he’d lived, had he not? Why did it all keep trying to slide away from him?  _What_  had he been doing? Was it really so frivolous? Had he been such a waste?

A razorblade balanced on his brain. He could feel it poised. Military? Skilled labor? Unskilled labor? Shipside, planetside? _Which_ ship, _which_ planet? What the _fuck had he_ —

_A thump of metal meeting flesh._

_“Fuck! Ow, fuckingdamnit!”_

_Another thump, distinctly grumpier. Something flew lightly through the air._

_“Curmudgeonly POS.”_

_Loud laughter._

What the—someone small.

Someone small. Yes, alright.

A shrill voice. Probably gave him headaches. What else? He begged for the thought to catch, waited for the instant that the blade dug in and the memory came rushing back.

It wouldn’t.

Small. Shrill voice. High-strung, apparently. Someone he’d laughed at.

He had brown hair, didn’t he? Did he smile? Yes, perhaps he did.

What was the connection? A colleague? Just someone?

“Champion? Are you there?”

He started and looked up sharply. That  _wasn’t_  just any voice, and he’d known as much from the start (when it first rubbed against whatever was _missing_ from him). But was it the same voice he remembered, or was his brain just inventing connections where there were none? Was it _this_ voice?

“I do know you.” His fist was pressing against the floor beneath him. “I do.” Lifting it, he gripped his hands together. He rocked back and forth, though he wasn’t supposed to fidget, for it irritated her to no end. “I was right.” Wasn’t he? He was. Useless as his head seemed to be, wasn’t he right about this?

_Clang!_

_“Well,_ shit! _” Semi-amused, mostly incensed. “On a fucking sandwich!”_

_Clang!_

_Mild. “Language, —”_ and then empty space where the name should have been (and that served him right didn’t it? All at once, now _he_ was the one clambering after names).

Who was it? The voice was the same, he was certain. This voice was that one.

“What’s your name?”

But the voice— _that_ voice—wouldn’t give it.

Sitting back, he thumped his head once against the wall behind him. Then he did it again, when the first time didn’t help. Pain bloomed, useless and irritating. He shut his eyes, feeling helpless. And he may have whined a little bit when he asked, “Where are you?”

“Just here.” Here with him.

His hand found its way into his hair. “Who were you, to me?” High-strung. Smiling. Irritable, apparently.

“We were friends.” But no, no, he didn’t have that. Not him. In the arena he’d had it and, one by one, they’d gone. He’d killed them, or someone else had. He gritted his teeth and heard his jaw creak.

“What?” he ground out, “Is your name?” He thumped his head back again. “Damn it, what—”

_K-… R-… … Matt._

Matt.

Was it? It was. He was certain it was Matt. Just Matt.

Brown hair. And brown eyes too. High-strung. Smiling.  _Human_. Another human.

“Matt.” He spat it out like he’d won a fight.

“Yes.” The humming coalesced and nearly disappeared into quiet. “Yes, _Matt_. That’s me.” The voice was a whisper. “That’s my name.”

They were friends. Matt. 

Matt had always been his friend.

It didn’t all come ringing back. There was no thunderclap and he was Shirogane Takashi again. It was progress by inches. He _hadn’t_ forgotten, so he couldn’t just _remember._ But some things are deeper than forgetting. The harder he tugged, the less it wanted to give. Thread through mud. The finest spinnings through the thickest thorns. _Please don’t tear._

He hadn’t forgotten anything. They were names he hadn’t thought of in a long time. He hadn’t forgotten. He hadn’t. 

He had a home, didn’t he? He had a brother? And a s—no. No no. _Hold_. He wrestled down the desire to press. This first. Matt first. Keep focused, _don’t get lost._

Brown. Small. Smiling. Crying, when he’d smashed his leg and crippled him. Human (and he was human too; they were _both_  human). Matt.

 _MattMattMattMatt,_ he tried to make it familiar.

And Matt wasn’t alone, he remembered that. Matt had hardly ever been alone, Matt had been with—

“Did you have a father?” Thinking of that, he wondered did _he_  have a—no, one thing at a time. Matt first. “W-who was your father?”

 _Commander Samuel Holt._ Older man. Rather worn. Frazzled-looking. Obsessed with aliens, and didn’t mind how they laughed at it. Why would they have laughed at it?

There had been a mission. Some mission, looking for. For ice? That didn’t make sense, what could they have needed with that? It wasn’t anything to get excited over.

Something else prodded at his head. There were three people on that mission.

“Who else?” He had his teeth into it now, and he held tight. “You’re Matt. Your father is Commander Samuel Holt. Yes?”

“Yes, that’s right.” The voice was fragile.

“I knew three of you?” He could see Commander Samuel Holt (“ _Just Sam. No one around to complain, up here._ ”) Graying hair. Crinkling eyes. Matt was small. Brown. Smiling. But he couldn’t see the third one. An empty space where his face should have been. There was graying and kind. Brown and smiling. But who else?

“Three?”

“Didn’t I?” he pressed. Wasn’t he right? Worthless as his mind seemed to be, he was certain he was right about this. He needed to know; he needed to have all three of them. “On the mission.” Insistent, because wasn’t he right? Wasn’t he? “Who’s the other one?”

“Go back to your cell.”

“What?” No, he  _needed_  this. His fists grew tight and his lip curled. Why would he go back—

But Matt sounded urgent. “She’s on her way to find you. I have you mapped to your cell. You have to be there to greet her when she arrives.”

In the face of her, the need shattered. He scrambled up to stride away. She’d be so furious if she knew. But he paused at the door with one more quick question.

“Are they dead? Your father and the other one?” He worried the inside of his lower lip (did he do that? That wasn’t any tic of his).

“I hope not. But. I haven’t seen them in quite a while. Now, get moving.”

Without another backward glance he rushed off.

* * *

He kept thinking about it.

Brown hair, brown eyes, pale skin. Long hours in a slow, clumsy ship. After a little effort, he managed to call up green grass, blue skies. Then broad, gray clouds. Tall trees. Dogs that barked instead of hissed, and horses with only four legs. Red, rocky desert. Wide, smooth steppe. As more days went by, it all punched its way into his head, always when he was least prepared.

When he ate, his food tasted vile. There was no reason for that. Nothing about it was wrong, and it certainly hadn’t ever bothered him before. But it was. Wrong. He ate it anyway, but it was revolting to him.

Soldiers ran down a hallway and their steady footsteps turned into galloping. He heard the happy, laughing rumble of engines that he _knew_  didn’t belong to any ship in the Galra Empire. Her long, sharp hands became someone else’s. The soft flutter of her robe became birds with broad wings and hooked beaks.

During his morning practice, he enviously watched an eagle disappear into a too-bright empty sky, and that distraction very nearly, very truly killed him.

He shouted when a heavy blade split his back open, from the edge of his shoulder, to the wing of his hip, smashing across his spinal column. Laminae and spinal process all shattered, his legs collapsed. Breathing was suddenly so difficult when the bottom half of his ribcage wouldn’t move right. Diffuse, roaring pain took up residence in his back and his heart fluttered.

Flat on the floor, he wheezed, blinked through already hazing eyes, and tried to understand what had just happened to him? Had he failed? Had he finally failed enough? It hurt, there was red spreading out around him. He heard her materialize at his side, there in an instant, and he craned his neck up to see. What happened, was she done with him? The look on her face…

She was no healer of any kind, but she dropped down to her knees anyway. She placed her fists on either side of the wreck of his spine and she _shoved_. Pain crystallized, and he let out a thin approximation of a scream while bone shards cleared and flowing blood reversed itself. It was excruciating, even by her standards. His arms and head writhed and they twitched, but he couldn’t feel anything below his back he _couldn’t feel anything belowbut still it hurtstop_ it was useless, he couldn’t get out from under her. He couldn’t reach any air, he couldn’t _breathe_ and he floated up somewhere above himself while _himself_  tried to squirm and tried to cry out. No breath in his lungs, but he tried anyway. And he kept at it, as every one of his crushed or severed spinal nerves and rootlets was hunted down and parsed out and tacked back into place.

His vision fogged completely over, and he left for somewhere far away. Far and farther, to someplace half-remembered, where soft, dusty yellow silt was always getting everywhere. Sharp (sharp, it  _hurt—_ ) jutting mountains, reaching straight up into the clouds. Thorny scrub and brush that caught on his boots. And still, the sky.

When it was over, and he lay on the floor—in a room, on a ship, no sky anywhere—finally repaired enough to groan and shudder without impediment, she stood up again. Her robes were painted in red, from her foot to her knee. She took a step and swayed on her feet and, for an instant, he was unutterably terrified that she would crash back down to the floor. He reached for her without a thought. But she caught her balance and hissed at him until he shrank back.

Cowed, he stayed quiet and breathed against the floor. He was bleeding still, she hadn’t finished. There was a line of fire crossing down his back (but to be able to _feel_ it; to be able to identify and delineate _just_ it—) where muscle was still split apart. But that at least, could heal. All of that could recover. But his spine. It had taken so much from her, to repair a wound like that. He could feel in every bone, just how much she’d had to give to him. Despite himself, he marveled at her (he was always marveling at her). She was no healer. Stopping and starting hearts was one thing. Choking and clearing lungs was simple, he would know. But this?

She was drained enough that she accompanied him to the infirmary, where a proper physician gave her a tonic to drink. Something shimmering and thick, and apparently restorative. He waited, summarily ignored, with his back _drip dripping_  on the floor, and he watched the physician place two hands on her head and speak quiet, lilting words over her until she livened back up.

He was examined sufficiently to determine that yes, the nerve damage was undone, before they were discharged. Then, having satisfied herself that, what ever else, his spine was intact, she held him down and beat him until he couldn’t move.

There she left him, to blink his way back. A field of pale blue edged his reality but he just glimpsed the last of her, stalking from the room. Blearily, he wondered why she hadn’t done worse. And then the realization made him laugh. Try to.

She still didn’t know. She had no idea where hiss head had been; what hat he’d been watching while she dealt with him. She hadn’t spoken to him once, hadn’t let him say a word. She didn’t know what he’d uncovered. Somehow. Somehow, she didn’t know what he’d gone and done.

Haggar stormed off and fumed, and he lay still, quietly sniggering to himself.

Still watching his burning blue sky.

* * *

He had such dreams of it.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick housekeeping thing: I headcanon Shiro as an all-growed-up international kid. Yep, you heard me. The kind who got his primary and secondary education from places like Seoul Foreign School and International School of Ulaanbaatar, etc., etc. Parents worked internationally, so lots of moving, LOTS of traveling.  
> I didn’t start backpacking until I was an adult. But a lot of (not all of course) the people I’ve met overseas, who have been doing this all their lives, are Just. Crazy. Likable, thick-skinned, understanding, confident, good with people, super chill, brave-by-default. Amazingly competent and independent. Gasp, why those sound like Shiro-y traits, don't they? At least, I thought so. And in classic headcanon form: once thought, it cannot be un-thought.  
> It makes only an itty-bitty appearance in this fic. But it did inform a fair chunk of the decision-making so I figured I’d get it out there anyway.  
> OTHER housekeeping: Shiro’s happy-fun year timeline and where we are, in it. You’ve probably figured it out yourself, but just in case: the end. Or very, very near the end.

 

 

_Keith was grinning like a idiot. He had blood on his teeth and Shiro did too and they probably shouldn’t have done what they just did. Matt turned in his desk chair and opened his mouth, with a question._

(Sorry)

_How long had he been staring at this? The next exam was in a few days and he had half a brand new textbook to internalize. Keith laughed at him was there ever a time when he wasn’t studying? His head dropped to his desk and kept falling through it. Matt was laughing at him and Katie was hopping around in a blue and brown dress._

_Ryou was gone, and he was laughing hard. Missing, gone but why—it was just insane and if he didn’t have a brother anymore, then what? If he didn’t have a brother anymore—_

_Spine bowed over, he kept his face buried in his hands. Sharp fingers rubbed soothingly up and down his back and he couldn’t stop laughing_

_So many stars out here in the desert. But he knew somewhere better. And it would be even better still, when he was up there._

_That’s the goal, isn’t it? The whole point; isn’t that why we joined up? Keith, please—_

(So sorry)

_A rumbling in his ears but he couldn’t make out the words. Pitch black and very strange. He was pinned in place. But a call went up. Colorful voices burned at him and for him and all around him. He strained closer to listen. So close that—_

_His head smacked against Matt’s, both of them trying to peer too close at the same sheet. He lurched away and a sharp hand gently caught the back of his head. Matt’s smiling face bled and melted._

_There was sand in his boots and his own life flashing by alongside him. And he flew faster faster fasterfasterfaster and they were all laughing and_ he _was laughing_

_There was blood in his mouth and the sky was so blue._

* * *

His eyes snapped open and _there_ sounded his awaited thunderclap, while his quivering heart launched into his throat.

Matt!

Matt was here. Matt was on this ship. What the fuck was Matt doing on this ship?

He scrambled up and barely swallowed a shout when his body made itself known. He managed a handful of steps before it dragged him down to the floor. _Haggar_ , he remembered, as he gingerly tried to pull himself up. Haggar had been angry with him over worrying her.

Matt was on this ship.

Why?

He had to wait all day long. He had to wait, and make it through his practice (pitiful; he barely managed at all, and she appeared and lashed him across the face every time he was too slow). Then he had to wait some more, while she bound him up well enough so he could stand straight. He hoped she would still let him heal some tonight. Hoped she wasn’t angry enough to withhold it twice in a row. And then new training, always new lessons to learn. Forms, ritual, meditations. A whole host of tasks that left him wrung out, and too exhausted to care about much of anything. A day of frustration clawing the backs of his eyes and he _ached_ and he couldn’t even remember what he was going to ask Matt anyway. 

But he’d regret it if he didn’t go, he knew that much. So he went, even if it was too hard to say why.

Innocuous, quite unhurried (though that wasn’t a difficult farce to keep when one of his legs couldn’t lift more than a few inches each step), and not-at-all-deliberate he made his way across the ship.

The red light knifed right through his brain and he remembered that _actually,_  he did care quite a lot. With the door safely locked behind him he opened his mouth and, “What are you doing here?”, “Why?”, “ _Are_ you actually here, where are you?”, “How?”, “When?”

And of course,

“What did they do to you?” Though he hadn’t meant to just say it like that.

He sat slumped against the wall, squinting through the redwash, with Matt next to him, in front of him, all around him. Failure confronted him on every side and he didn’t know what he could do.

How long had Matt been here? Shiro ( _Shiro_ , just Shiro, the third face Shirogane Takashi but Matt called him Shiro. Just Shirogane Takashi and he hadn’t forgotten but he should have held tighter) hated the way he hadn’t questioned it before.

A vessel AI. Nothing very special. But somehow, here was Matt. Shiro’s head was pounding so loud, he felt sure he had to be missing something. How was this Matt? Why was it Matt? Hadn’t Shiro tried to—

Why, _why_ was it Matt? Shiro didn’t know what to do.

“They noticed me, I suppose. Decided they could put me to better use.” Matt didn’t sound bitter or angry or even sad about it. He didn’t sound like anything. “I guess I learned too much. But they started assigning me different projects.

“I was actually interested in a lot of it.”

Shiro scoffed at that, little starbursts of pain flaring in his head. Of course. These were the Galra but Matt still wanted to learn. Matt _always_ wanted to learn. That should have been protected from them.

“They gave me a new project. More complicated. Then it happened one morning, while I was eating. And when I woke up I was this, and I’ve been working ever since.”

 _Ever since._ Dully, he wondered if Matt had been screaming when he woke up. Shiro would have.

“It’s good actually, that I didn’t meet you sooner. It took me a while to learn my way around this. Use it, I mean. See through it. Make the voice actually sound like mine.” Shiro considered the merits of screaming, right there on the floor. “They didn’t appreciate that.”

Bleary, he shook his head. The room kept spinning after he stopped and the red light was like having blood in his eyes again. “But _where_ are you?” Was he talking to dead memories? Was that all? He couldn’t be, that wouldn’t make any sense. Memories weren’t any good for integrating and problem solving. Once-living AI’s only handled day-to-day maintenance of all the things they had done _before_. So, then where was Matt? Shiro was missing something.

But Matt said, “I’d rather not.”

A few of Shiro’s teeth were loose. He’d been swallowing iron and gluey copper all day but it hadn’t nauseated him until that moment.

“I’m sorry.” When was the last time he’d said anything so worthless? But this didn’t make sense. He must have failed at it again, he was dreaming again. He was always dreaming, he had to be dreaming. Blue skies, monsters, whispers, summons, dead friends. He was always having the strangest dreams. Why couldn’t he be dreaming? _So sorry_

“Don’t be!” Matt’s voice suddenly flared up. “Not for a second.”

“I wanted to get you out—” _Tried._ _Failed again._

“And you did.” Matt spoke harshly enough to cut. “ _Thank you,_ you saved my life. Don’t—don’t discount that. _My_ life, do you understand? I’d hang anything on what you did, don’t you _dare_ discount it.”

Not flat, he sounded angry. He sounded like he was right there. Or just on the other side of a commlink, angry as all hell. But oughtn’t he? All that Shiro had failed to do. All that he’d done. Oughtn’t someone to be angry?

“You gave me time. To take care of my father. I got to live, when I would have di—Shiro, _listen!_ ”

Shiro’s head snapped up and tried to focus. But his brain was like a loose bag of sand and the entire room was throbbing in time with his heart.

“Listen.”

He tried to but it wasn’t easy. What was he missing?

“I learned.” Matt said that like it was holy. Something very small (very strange, very unfamiliar) hissed in Shiro’s ear, _Shhhhssh-shush! Not for them. That’s not for them no matter what. Don’t you know better?_

He didn’t know that voice at all, so he shut it up. He’d rather hear Matt instead. Hear nothing but Matt, because everything else was out to swallow him.

“Right now, right this second.” Matt’s voice turned distant and strong, so Shiro listened closer. “It would bend your mind, to know everything that I know right now. I could tell it to you but it wouldn’t make any sense. It would leak right back out, because you haven’t the capacity to hold it.”

The voice was Matt’s, so he tried not to sink. If Shiro paid attention, could Matt explain this? What they were supposed to be doing? All that Shiro had already done and couldn’t undo. What good was any of it? Did he know?

He breathed slow, and he leaned on his station. On cold, sharp hands that gripped tight. He tried to let her hold him together, so that he could listen.

“Or,” Matt sounded like ice cracking, “maybe you could. You’ve changed too, haven’t you? I’ve seen. And her, I’ve seen all the ways she’s—” Matt stopped short, and Shiro thought of curling up and disappearing.

“You’ve done _plenty_ of things that I never thought you could do.”

God, but he had. 

Shiro’s breathing hitched and shuddered. Matt let him twist a while. “But whatever you’ve done and whatever you are, don’t say that you’re sorry. You saved _my_ life, don’t act like it failed.

“Don’t tell me I’m ruined.”

There it was.

Shiro didn’t dare give it name, but Matt went ahead. And Shiro couldn’t make him take it back (because he was too).

With his eyes shut, he saw bright purple lines darting and shining over each other. _Hold together_. He didn’t hear his breathing quicken, he didn’t hear his heart. _Don’t give way._ He didn’t notice how his hair began tearing where he gripped it.

Matt must have relented, because the humming turned quieter. Up from behind it rose the incongruous cadence of music. When Shiro checked back in, it was to chiming tones, so suddenly mild as to bewilder. Notes that tumbled in small, lapping waves, gentle like nothing he’d heard in what felt like a very long time.

When they were all alone and she sang to him, it was a pressing weight that pried him right out of his head, and quieted him, whether he wanted to be quieted or not. It dragged his focus to wherever she decided. He’d learned to take relief in it (eventually), but it was not like this. Nothing so peaceful. Nothing so clear.

Clear enough that his jaw unclenched and his panic slithered back down where it belonged (oilslick and rotten, all of it). When the melody cycled, he spoke up tentatively. “Is that from home?”

Was it human? Was it home?

“No,” Matt murmured, still singing, and Shiro had no call to feel suddenly bereft. “I learned it here.

“This one’s the third voice from the Song of Easy Reproach.” Shiro barely believed that. One of the hymns. But it wasn’t like any that he’d ever heard. Everything he remembered was riotous. Loud, frenzied, bordering on rabid. Maybe it was wrong of him (clearly, for here was the evidence), but he would have never thought the Galra capable of something so quiet.

“Easy Reproach” was it? Fond admonishment. Fitting then.

Was it? Fitting?

Matt sounded like he was smiling. Like he was grinning just a touch too wide, or so Shiro imagined. “You probably didn’t hear it all too often in the arena.”

That kicked his brain into a mode he’d forgotten it had. It startled a stiff, dusty laugh out of him and reopened one of the cuts on his face. “Nope.” Shiro slouched down, listening to the song. He couldn’t quit smiling. It didn’t feel especially good. “All they ever had was… ” which one was it? His headache was getting worse, not better. “All they ever had was ‘Gleeful Hunger,’” he chucked. “On a loop.” That was the one. That awful masterwork of theirs.

He heard a buzzing. It grated against the music and set an edge to his teeth. And he didn’t immediately realize, but it was the sound of Matt laughing. “It did seem to be a crowd favorite.”

That hadn’t actually been that long ago. Had it? Felt like decades but it could have been days. He wouldn’t know.

“Before, I used to wonder how they all stayed in time with no outside help. Do you want to know? I could tell you.”

Shiro had long since learned, himself. Haggar was his teacher, he knew all about the Galra. He was very lucky to have been chosen by Haggar.

Shiro found he could still craft all the hymns. Though, not like the Galra could of course. He couldn’t stand tall with his neighbors, if he’d had any, and launch into unified purpose the way that the Galra could. But he could remember the sound of it. Designs that had drilled through his ears when bloodthirsty spectators plaited together countless different parts; all of it perfectly orchestrated and organized, as naturally as breathing. Like some tremendous machine built out of all of them. It had been beautiful music, in its way.

It had terrified him when he first heard it. More than his opponent had terrified him.

Strange to be sitting here in relative safety, listening to something so far divorced from that. An odd tingling seized the opportunity to crawl all over him. In from his edges, it scuttled across his skin. It settled behind his eyes and burned there. He blinked it back, he wasn’t sure what it was.

“Maybe,” Matt echoed like an interruption, but the music never faltered, “Maybe I’ve gone about this all wrong.”

Oh?

“Everything felt like it changed, when I saw you here. But maybe I was wrong, because now I don’t know what I ought to do.”

Shiro’s head really did hurt. It might be his fault if Matt wasn’t making sense.

“You dream, don’t you Shiro?” Too often; he was always dreaming. “I don’t. Sometimes I feel l like I have. Or like I might have. But the real truth is, I don’t.

“I don’t sleep, so I can’t. I can’t always be sure if I’m making sense because there’s no comparison. But you’d know if this wasn’t real, wouldn’t you?”

If only. Shiro cast one more look around the room. But her grin didn’t appear. He heard singing, but no laughter. She wasn’t here.

Not dreaming.

“I see.” Matt’s hum grew heavy. It swelled low and stayed that way for what seemed like a long time. 

“Look where we are,” Matt whispered.

Shiro couldn’t remember why those words should make him ache. He knew that he loved them and they made him hurt terribly; the rest slipped between his fingers, unfamiliar, unrecovered. Shiro breathed as deeply as he could, vainly trying to fill to the bottom of his lungs. One of his knees couldn’t bend up so easily, but he circled his arms around the other. He rested all ten tons of his head upon it and a trace of blood dripped from his face, to dot the floor.

He thought of how Matt hadn’t slept since it happened. Something like hopelessness leaned its elbow on Shiro’s back, right between his shoulders. _Look_. Look what they did.

He breathed again, slowly (more spattering, he’d better clean that up). He still didn’t know what to do, did he? He chuckled a bit, his back curling tighter. What now, what could he do? He shut his eyes, but when the purple mesh glinted he snapped them right back open. He didn’t want her seeing him.

What now?

He had to go. He was out of time.

* * *

_It was dark and that had always scared him. Always, even back before. Always rippling and pooling in him and spilling all over._

_Pitch black all around, drowning from within and without, but now something was strange about it._

_They were the Huángshān, weren’t they? He’d first decided right here, though the sky had been blue then. He’d liked the sight of clouds from above and he decided he never wanted to come down. But they’d left with the sky. The stars were all gone, and he heard the growling rise up._

_Pitch black and snarling, and reaching for him but something was different_

* * *

What now?

He’d healed up and his head wasn’t so scrambled for his next visit. Even so, he still hadn’t figured that out. They talked about other things and talked about them loudly. But it drummed a steady beat in the back of Shiro’s head. What to do?

Haggar’s work here wasn’t forever. It wasn’t even for too much longer. Then they both would go, Matt would stay, and that would be that. For one insane second, he considered trying to prolong things. But that was ridiculous. Even crazier, he imagined getting Matt out somehow (like he _should_ have done). But for all their talking, Matt wouldn’t say what had happened to him. Shiro had no idea of whether there might not be anything left to save.

They talked about other things.

Matt’s friends at his old camp. The Garrison they both still missed (now that Shiro knew to). Red, rocky deserts. Brothers and sisters. Names for all those places he’d known on Earth. Things that Shiro _hadn’t_ forgotten, but Matt was patient enough to help him remember them anyway. It was a novelty for Shiro. Doing wrong and going unpunished. Failing, without any retribution. Having to understand that the universe just honestly didn’t fucking care. Or Matt didn’t care. Or he cared but he didn’t mind. He was Shiro’s friend after all.

They talked about other things. Loudly.

One time, someone Matt knew had tried to escape the camp. In the biggest, flashiest (most explosive) way imaginable. The kind of attempt that left the entire operation in disarray; guards and keepers running around, just trying to forestall rioting and keep lockdown enforced. The entire camp cheered and yelled, right up to the point that the escapee was shot down. Then they yelled louder. They howled, just to prove that they could (and would try again).

One time, Shiro had earned himself an execution in the arena. Misbehaved too often and all at once, he'd been on his knees, choking. Some of his friends had had to step forward and plead for him. Idiot thing for slaves to do (even if they were favorites, and the winners of that last bout. He was both of those things too, and it hadn’t protected him any). But they did it, right in front of the emperor and everyone.

As Emperor Zarkon always did, he’d made it a spectacle, offering the final say to the crowd. The plea had been made, so execute or don’t? And when giving their verdict, the nay votes had roared loud enough to shake the dust from every surface.

What a thing that had been.

Shiro couldn’t remember his friends’ faces that day. For all the faces that had been forcing their way back into his head (and there were so, so, _too many_ ) none of theirs would resolve. He heard a small voice. Brave words about foolish things. He though he saw skin the color of turquoise, but nothing else. Just one more half-finished person who’d helped him. Or maybe just someone he’d dreamt.

He was learning that so much of what he’d thought he dreamt wasn’t dreams at all. Too many faces and they weren’t dreams at all.

One time, early in the morning, Matt had been seized by the back of his neck and dragged off, faster than he could do anything about it. Faster than his friends could do anything about it. Those who’d tried (and they had tried, of course, because when in his life _hadn’t_ Matt been well-regarded?) had been much, much too slow. And then they’d been shot for their trouble anyway.

One time, in the middle of the night, Shiro had been dragged out of his cell. The noise woke some of his friends and they’d pressed forward, reaching for him as he was hauled past. They’d pleaded for him again, but now no one was listening. They were too valuable to shoot, but they hadn’t been able to do anything either.

(Then he’d killed them when he came back.)

But Matt didn’t want to talk about that. Back one time, then back another, because Matt only wanted to talk about the look on the emperor’s face, when the crowd decided it preferred Champion alive.

Shiro was just glad Emperor Zarkon had been there. Otherwise he would have been killed on the spot, no questions. No one else was brave enough to engage and indulge half-feral spectators (who were never more than a step away from violence of their own. Give them any slack at all, and they just might go wild).

“Wait.” The cogs turned in his head and his memories derailed. “You weren’t there.” Matt had already left. And then Shiro left too, before Matt ever became… this. He wondered how far Matt’s awareness had come to extend, and he asked, “What would you know about any look on his face?”

(It hadn’t even been that good a look. They were pretending otherwise, for something to talk about, but the emperor hadn’t been surprised. Not at all. His rule wouldn’t have been worth much if his people could surprise him.)

Matt was grinning again. Or Shiro was pretty certain he was. “I watched with all the rest.”

That clarified nothing. But coming from Matt, Shiro was growing accustomed to it.

“You didn’t know they were broadcasted? The emperor himself in attendance, and you actually didn’t think that they’d be shown all over?”

In fact, he had not thought that at all.

Matt laughed at him. Or buzzed or hissed at him. “We watched all the time. Whenever they fed us anyway. It didn’t cost them anything and it reminded us where we could still be sent, if we ever made too much trouble. We saw fights from all over. Whichever matches the emperor deigned to attend, those were what we watched.”

Shiro frowned. He’d seen Emperor Zarkon in the crowd all the time. More often than not.

“Like that, it actually didn’t seem quite as…” Base? Visceral? Shiro’s lip curled back from his teeth, and he rather wanted to know just what it _wasn’t_ , when seen from afar? “You wouldn’t think it, but everyone in my block was, apparently, a better fighter than any arena gladiator will ever be. All of them had something to say about who could have taken whom ‘three moves faster if he’d only—’”

Shiro snorted derisively. And Matt buzzed louder.

“We weren’t supposed to, but we had our fun with it.” As though Matt were grinning. Grinning, it seemed, a touch too widely, or maybe Shiro was just being stupid. “It gave us something to think about. Besides what a tragedy we were.”

The levity fled the room as though on a strong wind. Shiro wasn’t prepared and at once, he was sinking again and trying not to.

“When you stopped featuring, I thought you were dead. That you’d died in your cell, or fighting some nobody, when Zarkon wasn’t watching.”

Rotten, stinking tar climbed higher while Shiro slipped lower. Waiting for it to close over his head, he thought about where he’d gone.

“‘Horrors,’ wasn’t it? That’s where you said you were. I’m sorry for that.” Matt didn’t sound sorry. The closely modulated color and emotion had leeched from a voice turned suddenly mechanical, and no, he didn’t sound sorry. _Good_. Good, Shiro didn’t want to hear that from him.

“I looked for you for a while. When you didn’t reappear, I eventually stopped paying attention to them.” It wasn’t Shiro’s fault that he’d gone. It wasn’t; he hadn’t _tried_ to, but what good was that? “But I still remember exactly what match was being shown. When they got the drop on me.”

Shiro rested his head on one hand. Felt the heel of it against his eye, felt metal fingers digging. He tried to focus himself, he tried to lean his unsteadiness on her, but she was nowhere to be found. He tried to say something worthwhile, but that failed also. All that came out was “I’m sorry,” just as helpless and useless as it had ever been. Words shaken out, and every bit as emptied as he was. “I am so sorry.”

“Shut up.” Matt didn’t sound like he was smiling. And in truth, he hadn’t before, either.

“You know, I never thought…” Matt didn’t sound like anything.

He began again, “I’m—” And again, he stopped short.

Matt was silent for so long that Shiro began to wonder, just one time more,

If, just maybe, he mightn’t have been dreaming all this after all. If maybe he’d just gotten lost somewhere along his way.

“I am happy to see you, Shiro.”

What came out of him was laughter, for all that sounded like a sob. _Matt_. His good friend, Matt.

“I’m happy to see you too.”

* * *

 

_You still sound like you’re dying._

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess I was feeling my catharsis oats this morning because big ole chunks of this chapter consist of brand new stuff I just wrote (hope that isn’t jarring...)  
> [Sigh] Don’t go into the hard sciences, near-nonexistent readers. I could swear I was a lightstepping, nuanced writer (hah!) back before med school... maybe.  
> Meh. The name of the game for this chapter: erm... gift-giving.

 

 

_“Tadaima!”_

_“Tak?” Little feet actually did pitter-patter when they ran to collide into him with a surprising amount of force and whoa, okay—what’d he do to earn this kind of greeting? Cold hands attached to still-chubby little arms wrapped around his shoulders when he lifted and spun around._

_“Okay, who’d you piss off?” That earned him a half-indignant giggle and a tighter squeeze and don’tcurseI’lltell._

_What’s got you all—_

_—little bit dazed. If I let go, you aren’t going to start tipping again, are you?_

_“Maybe.” He and his uncle leaned against a wisely-placed wooden rail. At high noon the wind blew freezing cold enough to burn. The man was still swaying and his knuckles were bright white. “I chase horses. And goats and sheep. What am I doing up here? Give me a minute yeah? I’m standing up above the clouds.”_

_Yeah. Damn._

_“I was crazy coming along on this. You kids are crazy, my sister passed it down. Don’t let go a little longer yeah? Just let me”_

_“I’ve got you, you’re okay.” Shiro’s hand remained clasped around his elbow. But when Shiro looked around it was too dark to see clouds. Too dark for stars. Pitch black, he couldn’t see anything. How could he—_

S _—keep an eye on them, okay? And he scoffed. Oh sure, of course. Keep an eye on every single one of them because that’s what Shiro’s all about._

_Too dark, much too dark._

_But the ice reflected their tiny lights and all the distant stars. Kerberos was glowing for them and he could see fine._

_Isn’t this exciting, Shiro?_

_Matt in front of him, pitch black behind him. And he trembled at the dark because it was still so angry, yet somehow something seemed different_

* * *

“There’s so much I want to tell you. Things that should matter to you. Things that you _know_ , but that are… so much more exquisite than you understand.” He wondered how frustrating it must be, to try to explain the exquisite to someone who couldn’t grasp it?

“Your own life, even. All living things assign immense value to their own existence, but you still fall so short. It’s more important than even you imagine.” Was it? He wasn’t especially sure why. But this was his friend who told him so. His own friend and that meant he was trustworthy.

He stayed quiet, and listened to that friend (likely the last one he had left) try to limn the universe for him.

“The whole of everything can change on the day that someone lives, who would have otherwise died. But dozens and hundreds can disappear in a handful of hours and its effect might sputter out before getting anywhere. Existence marches on. It’s all as true. Everything you wondered about? Every paradox is true and you’ve accepted that for as long as you’ve been alive. You’ve studied a little of it even and others have studied much more. You always accepted it but you still don’t comprehend it. Truly, I promise you don’t, but it _is_ beautiful. I wish you could come a little closer to understanding why.”

He thought it sounded simple enough, but he suspected that was because he didn’t understand at all.

* * *

“And he just walked around like that for the rest of the day?”

“He did. He stayed so straight-faced about it you'd almost think he really didn't notice.”

Shiro tossed a laugh up at the ceiling. “Did he run into Larkin at all?”

“Oh thank god, no. Not that I saw. Larkin would have had Christmas over that.” Asshole never had been shy about laughing at anyone over anything. He'd been one of Shiro's favorite instructors. Along with so many other things, he’d shown Shiro how to whistle with two fingers in his mouth and, in the months leading up to Kerberos, Shiro had made that his default way of summoning his friends (Matt among them) from a distance. Much like how Larkin himself would summon cadets, and therefore much like an asshole would do.

Good times.

* * *

“What’s come over you?” she asked him, her two fingers still poised over his eyes from drawing him back. The floor was cold underneath his head where his hair was short. Blinking, he watched the world fade into view behind her. She stood at his head, legs locked and spine comfortably folded over double with her face hovering above his. He turned into the hand she slid over his cheek. “That was the best you’ve ever managed. By far.” Shaky, his smirk rose on its own. “I’ve never seen you like this. Just what have you been doing?”

His panting made her hair flutter, not yet able to even out. “Been sleeping better.” Carefully, she brushed his sweaty bangs back from his face. Her cool fingers should have felt nice.

Her smile was knowing. “Have you been dreaming? What have your dreams been?”

His heart was still thumping too fast. “No dreams. Went looking like you said. Found some of the ship’s research staff.” Or near enough, hadn’t he? “Passed some time with them.” His head tilted in a reassurance for her worries. He’d been keeping sound, even if he’d been able to eat less than usual.

Her sharp-fingered hand was gentle on his face. Sweat dried fast in the ship’s cycled air. He was already cooling out, beginning to shiver in earnest. He really had done well.

Brightly, she smiled down at him, showing all her teeth. “I've been neglecting you.” He’d made her so angry. She’d barely looked at him outside his practice and lessons. “I turned away and see here, you’re thriving. Just to spite me.” Hadn’t she wanted him independent? Her smile burrowed right into his heart, burning there like a single luminous coal. It seemed like a long time, since she’d last shown it to him. He huddled it close without a thought, then wondered why it wasn’t warm.

It didn’t occur to him until hours later that he might have said too much.

* * *

“Shiro?”

Shiro picked his head up, listening. Matt sounded odd against the hum, and Shiro wondered what his expression might have been. Lately, Matt was more careful to keep the tone in his voice. After those few earlier times, he never slipped.

“Shiro, I don’t know if I remember what my sister looks like.”

 _Katie?_ Shiro blinked twice.

He opened his mouth, but his throat wouldn’t unlock for it.

He had the answer. He had it but he didn’t want it, pathetic as that was. He couldn’t say nothing. Matt didn’t deserve for him to say nothing. Not when Matt was what kept him afloat. Matt was a revitalizing point of apricity, like Shiro never thought he’d have again. Like Shiro was too cold to give up, and Matt deserved everything from him.

The simple words shouldn't have pulled like hooks. But they did. Like they’d been made into lies. “I thought—” he swallowed against the reluctant crack in his voice, “I always thought she looked like you.”

The humming stuttered just a little. As though Matt were shuddering.

Shiro dropped his eyes. He wasn’t actually sure if he remembered Matt’s face, or if his brain had just filled in lines without noticing it.

* * *

_Rumbling. Rolling thunder._

_Too dark. Black. Much too dark and it wouldn’t leave him alone and he couldn’t figure out what it wanted._

_He screamed at it but it just raged on._

_Angry at him?_

_Or over something else?_

* * *

“And maybe I don’t remember what most of them looked like back there—” Shiro still didn't either and wasn’t that frightening? “—but _nothing_ will ever get rid of Keith's face, when he caught on.”

Shiro tipped his head back, laughing. “Yeah.” No losing that. Ever. “Seen a lot but I don’t know if I ever saw anyone look so mortified.”

“Mortified, Shiro? _Betrayed._ That was the face of a man who’d lost all his tiny trust in the universe.”

“Right?” Shiro laughed harder. That day. That whole unreal day. Start to finish, this genuinely catawampus comedy of errors and misunderstandings (which, let the record state, had near landed Shiro in a metric fuckton of trouble). Matt had _actually_ , literally laughed until he cried, and Keith’s face had been something worth preserving forever.

Shiro leaned against the wall behind him, remembering Keith’s face when Kerberos was finalized. “Wonder what he’s doing right now.”

_Hope he’s okay._

* * *

“If I give you something, will you take care of it? It’s important.”

Matt had been talking about another friend from his camp and Shiro blinked at the non sequitur. Honestly? Well, he could try. Matt called him closer, told him to extend his hand just so.

Something dropped into his palm. A chip. Just a thin, tiny datachip. Light enough that he barely felt it.

“It’s everything I know.”

Shiro stared, not sure he was understanding. “Everything?” It was so small.

“Everything.” Everything that would bend Shiro’s mind to learn at once. “Everything I’ve gathered. About them, about the rest of it. Locations. Names. A legend or two. Or five. _Everything_ , everything. All that I’ve found out.”

Shiro held the tiny thing carefully. It glittered in his palm, lit with the secrets of the universe.

Literally, it would seem. 

“I’m not ever getting out of here.” That was likely true, much as Shiro wished otherwise. “And… you probably aren’t either. But.” Matt’s voice shook, and an uncharitable part of Shiro wondered if Matt had made it do that for effect.

“I don’t want them to have everything. I’ve given them a lot.” Yes, Shiro imagined he had. They had stumbled upon something valuable when they caught Matt. “But there’s some they don’t know about. It won't stop them, they can just have me keep working anyway. But at least—”

No, it wouldn’t. Nothing stopped them. Shiro had tried (just once, only just that once in a moment of either weakness or bravery). But they never quit digging. They always found a way. If there was anything left at all, the Galra found a way.

“And if you ever do _somehow_ get out of here.” Real escape? “There are things on there that… Maybe it can help you.”

Leaving had stopped occurring to Shiro at some point or other. His station was here and he had nowhere else to go anyway (though that wasn’t true because that had _never_ been true and there was a small corner of X-9-Y that belonged to him and he remembered Just. Fine.)

He hadn’t bothered to want it.

In all likelihood, he was bound here anyway regardless of what he wanted. Just as surely as Matt was. Still. Shiro supposed he could keep it, if _someday_ ever came.

“Shiro,” Matt’s voice sounded like it wanted to be sharp. “Please. Don’t give it to Haggar. Please don’t let her find it.”

He opened his mouth to agree. He’d never tell anyone. Of course not, he—

Lady Haggar? _His_ lady?

His patroness, the Pneumascribe? Haggar Dreamthief? The Defiler?

His throat dried up and he tasted dust.

(Why couldn’t she know anyway? No, he shouldn’t tell her. Why? He couldn’t tell her; he was supposed to, he was _always_ supposed to tell her and she always found out anyway.)

Matt went on, “Someone—someone with more freedom than I have—could do a lot of good with that. Could push progress ahead by leaps. There are weapons that could just maybe put a dent in a universe-spanning empire. Please don’t let her find it.”

Shiro’s fists were so tight his forearms (well, forearm) began to cramp. It was lucky the chip was in his left hand.

“Don’t talk about her.”

But this time, Matt wouldn’t indulge him. “Maybe even enough to make them notice. I’m letting you have it, do you understand? You’ve given her enough.”

Shiro tried not to hear that but he couldn’t help it. Matt was talking treason. He should forget he’d heard. He wanted to.

But god _damn_ it all, no he didn’t.

He didn’t and he never, ever should have. Long lost blue skies said he didn’t. Too-soon dead friends said he didn’t.

Matt pressed further, as if trying to stir him up. Didn’t matter, since it was working. “Isn’t she the reason you nearly forgot everything? Isn’t she the one who took it?” She was, yes. Absolutely. She took what he was and he hated her.

He—

He had _always_ hated her.

He was out-of-practice at this (he’d let it go so far, why did he ever let it go this far?) He hadn’t held his own horizons in some time and his grip was as tentative as if he were trying to hold sunlight.

Small steps. She had so much of him, but this little thing he would keep.

How was he even going to manage that? It may have been small but he didn’t have anything of his own. No hiding places. She was always moving him from cell to cell to lab to her room to cell to cell. She decided what he wore; when he was given armor and when he had only rags. She controlled when he ate, where he slept. She was everywhere. How to hide this from her?

He pulled off his gauntlet and rolled up his left sleeve as far as he could. There was a decent cut on the inside of his arm. A remnant of the morning. He uncovered it, and when he bent his elbow it opened back up. Good enough.

He removed his right gauntlet too, the thing was still filthy, and he worked a metal finger into the cut, trying to hold the skin still. He kept the arm close to his body, so it would bleed on him, instead of the floor (he maintained a vague sort of hope that none of the regular staff had bothered to note down his off-hour visits here. In case they hadn’t, he wanted to keep it that way). He held his breathing rock-steady. And ever so carefully, he blunt-dissected through fascia and thread-thin cutaneous nerves, until he could separate that tiny section of skin from the strip of muscle beneath it. There, as far back as his finger could reach, he tucked away the little chip (messy, but he managed), then pressed the cut and held, to slow and stop the bleeding.

Shiro unclenched his teeth.

Done. Ugly. Unrefined. It hurt. But done. “That should work.” He hoped.

“I’m glad you didn’t make me suggest that for you.”

“What? Oh.” Shiro nodded, catching on. “Yeah.” Kind of strange, he thought, for Matt to still be squeamish, wasn’t it? Or was it perfectly reasonable and Shiro was the one who was strange? He rolled his sleeve back down. It would swell tight enough to act as compress and it shouldn’t saturate. “She would find it otherwise.” She might still find it. She could always see when she wanted to.

When had that stopped bothering him? He had _nothing_ of his own, why hadn’t that bothered him?

“And with any luck it shouldn’t ever degrade or give you cancer.”

Shiro meant to laugh at that, but he was busy wondering.

“Shiro?”

“Yes?” _Why_ hadn’t it bothered him?

“I’m trusting you with it.”

“I know.” And he would try, much as he couldn’t promise anything.

“Come over here, please.” A bright light winked on, beckoning him over.

Doing as he was told brought him to a large panel. The one he’d tried to pry into that first day. Trepidation prodded the soles of his feet. The ground seemed to grow hot.

What was this about? “Matt, I don’t think that—”

“Shut up.”

He shut up.

“More than once now, you asked where I was.”

Shiro’s mind started to spin. He’d already agreed to hide it. He agreed, he said that he would. Why show him what he didn’t—

The panel smoothly slid away.

A throne of tangled, crossing cables. At the heart of it, something thin and wasted.

Bolted down into the center. Brown hair. Pale skin. Small.

Dead.

The panel snapped right back into place. Shiro lurched away and thought he’d be sick.

He stumbled in the wrong direction and, without any warning, lights flashed on in front of his eyes and static began to oscillate in his ears. Sequences too quick to make sense of and he couldn’t look away. Bright, loud, burning, screeching, he felt something press through him. It flared, buzzed, crystallized into one overpowering input, before abruptly letting him go. His ears rang and his vision filled with spots.

“Shiro? You alright?”

Quick, tottering steps until his shoulder thumped against something solid. “W-what? What was that?” Too much. All of that, too much, he didn’t have room for all of it. Shiro scrabbled at the wall, waiting for it to _stop_ being too much. He couldn’t see. What the hell had that been?

What had _any_ of that been, why would Matt want to show—

“If it stuck, it was formatting. And instructions. Some programming, so that if you ever read that chip, you’ll know what you’re seeing. And you can transfer and expand it all to its original state.” Oh. That made sense. That was reasonable. Was that reasonable? He was still stuck in it—in  _the hell had they done? Look what they did look what they_ —and he wasn’t sure.

“I needed your guard down.”

What? _That_ was why he’d—

“Hopefully you were receptive enough. Don’t worry, it can’t make you do anything.” Oh? Well. Good. Shiro clamped off his chuckling. Good, that was never a given around here.

Matt was his friend. Matt _wouldn’t._

“And a message also.”

Shiro’s confusion must have shown. “I know it’s not much of a hope. But if you ever run into my father… somehow. If he’s even alive.

“Or if you ever do actually find your way back home.” Shiro stayed quiet. “I just wanted you to have something from me. I don’t know how I can think you’ll ever be there. But something to tell my… mother. If you do ever see her. And my little sister.”

Because Matt would never, ever see them again. That much was certain and it rose like acid up Shiro’s throat.

He waited, but when Matt didn’t give him anything else, “What message?”

“I just gave it to you. It has its engagement parameters. It should activate if the time ever comes along.”

The nausea was as selfish as he was, because at Matt’s admission it got worse. But Shiro swallowed it back again, “You couldn’t have just told it all to me?”

“Too much to tell. I promise it can’t make you do anything.” Like little more than an afterthought, Matt tacked on, “I’m sorry. My putting this into your head was probably the last thing you wanted.”

Shiro clenched his teeth, but he crossed his arms and shrugged. No, not _the_ last (but then, Matt had just shown him that too, hadn’t he?) “What you thought was best.” What Matt needed to do. Niceties weren’t something Matt could afford (and whose fault was that?) Shiro didn’t mind. He didn’t care. Whatever Matt needed.

Matt _didn’t_ need him failing again. Matt was here (Matt was _this_ ) because no one had protected him and no one had helped him.

“When you saved me”—no one had done that—“I didn’t really realize the extent of it. But I’ve learned. I have.” 

And now Shiro had it.

This, he could manage. Matt wanted him to keep this so he’d keep it. The witch, Haggar, and all of the Galra—they wouldn’t ever touch it.

“I’ve looked back through the empire’s history. And I’ve watched for miles in every direction. Keep it safe.”

Shiro pulled his breathing under control, and his smile was crooked. Miles and miles in every direction. But Matt didn’t know his sister’s face.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more.
> 
> Also, for reference purposes/completeness' sake/anyone who... doesn’t google... that place I write Shiro as being so fond of (and dreaming of)? It’s [this place,](http://sassafrassrex.tumblr.com/post/152715928490/not-a-bad-place-to-be) which everyone ever should hope to visit because duh.  
> (Eat your heart out, James Cameron).


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note: Sorry, to this fic's small coterie of readers. Exams! Dey suck! Upside: One of them was clinical psychiatry *significant eyebrow raise+wink* so I tossed in some bonus clinical goodies for anyone who feels like DSM5 “Where’s Waldo?” (which... I’ll just pretend you /all/ want to do).  
> Quick note the second: I'm a real sucker for Chekov’s gun-ing (I think most people are) so Chapter 4 references Chapter 1, Chapter 3 references Chapter 2, etc. But also, this story takes place in the same universe as my other pre-VLD fic ([No Greater Heaven.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7631677) (I love knowing how to link! Makes me want to Rick-Roll people... not that I would. Ahem.)) /Certainly/ not necessary to read that (if it were, I’d have definitely put this note at the beginning of Chapter 1, not Chapter 4). But it might inform Haggar just a bit, if she seemed weird. Put simply, if anything you read feels like it might be echoing/referencing something? Go with the feeling, it probably is.  
> Thanks so much to you precious dudes who have read! And thanks double to those who have read and reviewed!  
> *Kicks chapter like a soccer ball.* Have this fool thing!

  

 

_Finally, he found her. Pointing her death’s head grin at him and laughing her laugh, so he could be sure of exactly where he was._

_Broken pieces like bits of a mirror. Slow work for him, to fit them together._

Listen now. We will continue.

_She made her voice plain. Raised it from her normal rasp to something light and airy._

This _, she said,_ is like anything else. Given time, you become accustomed. You grow to tolerate.

_The same words she said every time she tried to teach him this lesson. Fire crept under him and his head filled with out-turned needles._

You grow alongside it. You do not let it hurt you.

_His eyes slowly bulged out from his head, his sight slid out of focus. Strange, spurious edges, they weren't easy to fit together._

_It burned higher._

_Another piece. A dozen other pieces._

You would wonder at yourself,

_There was no silver to it. What could it reflect without any backing?_

To see how far you endure. It would shock you, to learn what you have to give.

_Another and another. They flashed like stars when he found their right places._

_They sliced his hands and blood spiraled up into the dark._

Focus, Champion. What does all this teach you?

_He was nearly a quarter of the way done. A quarter was the best he’d ever managed. This one didn’t fit right._

_It didn’t fit._

_He was burning._

Continue. Focus.

_There it went._

_What would the whole thing show if he ever managed to finish?_

You decide when it shatters you.

_Another._

_He was burning._

Champion.

_Another piece. Another._

_And another._

_He was screaming._

Champion!

_Another piece. And._

_Another._

_And._

_It splintered. A thousand pieces, it surged outward through him, to bank the fire he couldn’t stand anymore._

_Already her voice was fading out of reach._

You’ve yet to understand. That you improve, without understanding, is not a success.

_She’d said that before. However simple it seemed, he was missing it._

Again, tomorrow.

_She disappeared. His work disappeared. He was left all alone in the black._

_It moved under his feet, and it too began to slide away._

_Roiling molten and snapping like always, but it wasn't furious_ with him.

* * *

“Where will you go after this?”

“Not sure. Independent contractor, you know?” Or Haggar was. He smiled at the thought. “Work when commissioned.”  But not often. Not yet. Too many people still didn’t trust him, and she rarely foisted him where he wasn’t wanted.

Still. Their poorly kept secret was that he was a slowly rising star, and he knew it and they knew it.

Awake and aware, Shiro could recognize the pattern for what is was; his time at the Garrison had been the same. Slow, then slow, then much too fast. Small steps, painfully earned progress. Brick upon brick of initiative, until people knew him. Until it finally snowballed out of his hands and catapulted him to the edge of their solar system.

Here, he built on other things. People of interest in need of disposal. Vanguard strike teams that requisitioned (requested, rather) a druid-crafted pair of hands. Thus far, he’d only been called for _problem_ targets but just give it time. There was always work to do. The universe was still so big, and the empire’s maintenance and expansion never did end.

He showed up when requested, with her blessings draped around him, and he never did fail anymore. One assignment here, one there. Slow progress.

 _Patience_ , she’d counselled, as though this would bother him. _Your time is only beginning. Continue as you are,_ her smile had been blithe and her hand on his head was careless. _They’ll come clamoring after you before too long._

When not contracted and deployed, he went wherever she did, and there were always more of her lessons to master. Work, train, work, train, work. Patience, he had all the time he could need.

(Patience, because now more than ever, Shiro didn’t _want_ them clamoring after him.)

He caught himself before asking what Matt would do. Maintenance and expansion, they never did end.

* * *

_He sat with her, dutifully drawing out her spinnings as quickly as they appeared._

_The black without stars that was wrathful and still so frightening—he searched but couldn’t find it._

_Neither could he hold the burning palest blue that he loved. He didn’t want to, but he handed it over, for her to feed it into her work._

_All he could see was violet. Woven into a net._

_Beasts and monsters and vicious things all need their nets. They aren’t safe._

* * *

How many fights had he fought?

How much effort, spent on fighting and withering and compromising and _becoming._ Just to _live_ a single day longer. To draw his future out another inch farther.

With Haggar’s favor on him, his future was written. Wherever and whatever, it was already written.

With Haggar surrounding him, he couldn’t die if he wanted to.

This, the irrefutable truth, that he did have nothing of his own.

This corruption, that he’d learned to abide by that.

* * *

He only managed a few more visits to Matt. She took to watching him closer and he wasn’t able to get away. In truth, he couldn’t honestly afford the last evening he _did_ take. Needs must suffice, though. It was the risk he had to accept, they were set to leave the next morning.

When he arrived, carefully locking the door behind him like always, Matt was already aware of the dwindling time.

“Make sure she takes care of you. Okay?” He was grinning his grin, Shiro heard it. “Make sure she feeds you and waters you, and walks you every day.”

Deciding that Matt didn’t want to know what Haggar had him do every day (or Matt already knew and it didn't bear mentioning), Shiro grinned back, wide as he dared stretch it before it devolved into a baring of teeth. “That an order? I’ll let her know.”

What a laughable thought. See? There he went, laughing. Matt was laughing too, for all that the static hissing still sounded nothing like it.

Shiro leaned back against the wall and gentled his smile a little bit. “I’m going to miss you.” Now that he knew to. Now that he would remember to. There was a lot he would miss and Matt was the reason he had any of it.

“Yeah, you will. Don’t be a somnambulist.”

He blunted the words with the sound of a smile. Like a joke. Like he might have chastised Shiro _not to be a stranger, now_.

(As though it were not exactly what Shiro had been doing all this time.)

They talked like they always did, but Shiro felt the time unspooling away under his feet. It made him talk fast. And loud.

The Huángshān and the Duut Mankhan, and the other dozens of places he’d loved. Ever-burning blue skies. Gentle Reproach and Matt’s hissing. Each person he still wondered about back home. Shiro promised to remember all of it, for as long as he could.

Conversation eventually did dim and begin to falter. They’d already talked too long.

“Are you prepared for it?”

For any of it? Shiro didn’t think—

“I’ve just erased everything.”

 _What?_ He what?

“Can you still do it? I don’t think this will as simple as it was when you offered.”

Shiro was certain he didn’t quite catch that meaning.  _Can’t._

“I know you still don’t understand. I’m sorry. It would have made this easier for you.”

“What?” He tasted dust. _Can’t._  He was certain he had no idea.

But he heard her laughing.

Laughing so loud, he shouldn’t have been able to hear Matt. “Thank you for saving my life.” He shouldn’t have been able to hear the decision. Or the finality yet, “So I could do something with it.”

_Stop there_

“Please take it back.”

_Stop_

He shouldn’t have heard Matt smiling. “You already have everything I found out. Absolutely everything. So now’s the perfect time. If you’re quick about it, I’ll be gone before they find out.”

 _Don’t._ “No.” 

“You offered.”

“Please.” Shiro _hated_ begging but he begged.

“You offered.”

 _No,_  and he still didn’t know what to do, did he? Shaking his head like an idiot, he didn’t know. 

“Shiro, _look!_ ” But the panel remained shut. Quieter, “Look at this.”

As strong as Matt had been for Shiro (this whole time, while Shiro had stumbled and drowned), he seemed to crumble. “They took me apart. _This—_ all that I’ve managed. Everything I’ve learned?”

_Please, I can’t_

“I would trade it all back in a second, if I still thought I could. Look at what I am.”

Dead already. Yes, Shiro had seen that. Sustained by them and made to linger, but still just as dead. Dead and dried out, with no prospects,

But to remain here and keep on _thinking_.

Shiro’s accusation was a hiss, “You said you weren’t—” but he still stuttered on the words. “You _said_.  You said they didn’t.” _You said and I nearly believed you._

“Shiro, it’s heavy.” Shiro only glared at him. “Even for me. There’s only so much and I was already tired when I started.”

_So little fight left to begin with_

He didn’t want to understand. He didn’t want to understand so well. Matt was a bastard for asking.

(Shiro was a monster for withholding.)

“I’ve learned and I’ve expanded.” Matt had _wanted_ that. He should have protected him. “I’ve passed it all on. So now I’m finished.” It was that simple but Shiro wanted no part in it.

“I saw you on this ship. I couldn’t… tolerate what she’d done.” The tone had drained from Matt’s voice like water. The coaxing, the smile, the reverence, even the shame and the sadness. It all slid right away and once again, Shiro faced that dull sound Matt had been so careful to keep from him. “I gave you what I had. But I am tired. I am tired in ways that I never thought I could be.”

Shiro wanted to scream at him. Tired. They were _all_ tired, everyone in the whole damn _empire_ was probably tired, why should this also be his to carry?

Once upon a time, Shiro had concerned himself with doing what was right.

But _look where we are._ He pressed both palms into his eyes. Violet phosphenes came taunting, so he pressed harder. He didn’t want her. He’d just gotten it all back (not nearly all of it). He was only still learning how to be what he had been (he wouldn’t ever have all of it).

“No one’s coming to save me.” Matt had been awake for as long as Shiro had been dreaming, hadn’t he?

_Do what’s right. Don’t fail again. You’re a fool, don’t fail again._

_Things that are dying._

“Alright.” Even to his own ears, his voice was as flat as Matt’s. “Alright.”

With his head up high, Shiro took in everything around him. Made himself stare at it. Towers and displays. Crystals, slowly blinking markers. All of it bathed in red. He took in the trespass that had been committed against his friend (his own friend, _his_ ) and he made himself step forward to right it.

His hand pressed at the panel in front of him. One worthless time more, “I’m sorry.”

“But I. Am grateful.”

He nearly lost his nerve when the sick feeling in his gut finally manifested, and it _rushed_ upon Shiro that he was grateful too. His eyes burned with it and his mind wobbled on battered foundations, and it all nearly dragged him off someplace far away. But he planted his feet. Tried to hold together.

Tried to do it on his own.

Now he really would be on his own, wouldn’t he? It wasn’t for her to help him. It had never—it had _never_ —been hers, to help him. And Matt wouldn’t be around to help him either.

Oh, but there had been so much they were going to do. Shiro’s back curved until his head came to rest alongside his fist. So much. His hollowed bones quivered like they’d snap. He never should have gotten so lost. But he did, and she’d almost taken everything he had.

She was his whole world.

“Thanks, Matt.” He was so very grateful.

His whole rotted, corrupted world, crumbling in his hands and he felt very tired. Somewhere inside him, the truth settled that nothing he did would ever be worth this. “Thanks for all of it.”

And however much it must have cost him, Matt pulled the very last traces of color into his voice,

“I’m your friend.”

Shiro drew the panel back. A throne of cables, like he’d seen before. He began tugging.

Matt’s singing wasn’t beautiful like it had been before. Wrung out as dry and thin as everything else. Empty notes, low enough to miss if Shiro weren’t so hyperaware of everything Matt was.

He carefully sliced through nutrient infusions. The ugly pieces bolted along Matt’s spine couldn’t be removed, so he sliced through them too. Another one fit into a port, drilled into the base of the skull. It pulled loose with a noise like squelching mud, the music not enough to drown it out. They would hear. He _knew_ they would hear, and there would be no understanding from her. Shiro needed to be working faster than this.

Thin, barbed leads were hooked into the gray skin next to Matt’s sternum. Pacing sinus rhythm for him, but they let go when tugged. There were two principle cephalic outputs, speared just above each of his temples.

Thank you

Shiro cut them off and the hum became just a hum. Just the quiet drone of machinery standing by. He wasn’t sure how the singing continued.

He pulled a long tube from Matt’s throat. The disconnected ventilator kept breathing. And, Shiro saw Matt breathe on his own. Shallow, but he did it for a little while.

It took some time to cut and unscrew and unplug every piece, before Shiro could reach in and lift what remained. Rocking him close, the raw ends of cables and lines oozed dark colors onto the floor. Something inside Shiro was howling. Was grieving, was thrashing. But he listened to the notes instead (Matt was still better to listen to). His eyes, he kept his eyes front because he couldn’t look down at Matt’s face. He hoped it was peaceful. But if it wasn’t, he didn’t look.

He tucked Matt’s head under his cheek, to wait. Matt’s skin was very cold, his gloved hands hadn’t felt it.

He waited until the singing cut out. He listened a little bit longer, until Matt stopped breathing.

And he sighed. Because it wasn’t enough. They’d find a way. It would take them time to strengthen him back up to baseline, but they always found a way. Shiro raised a white-hot glowing hand, poised it at Matt’s throat. If there was anything left, they’d find a way. _Do what’s right._

A set of sharp fingers wrapped around his wrist.

 

He’d failed again.

He fought as hard as he knew how but it happened faster than he could do anything about it.

They gripped his arms and wrenched him back. He was dragged away and Matt was left crumpled on the floor.

Again.

 

Her rage with him was otherworldly. She made him say his name for her. His name, and every time he sobbed it out, she twisted deeper. She echoed it herself, high and shrieking, reminded him _exactly_ why he’d tried to let it go. With her fingers at his head, she pressed so heavy and dug so far, he thought she would uncover everything he’d hidden. He clamped down as hard as he could for as long as he could. And he hoped.

He found it again, the familiar furious dark without stars. Roaring up to catch him as he spiraled downwards.

When his eyes were closing and he couldn’t breathe anymore and she surrounded him, he wondered (he hoped) if perhaps he’d finally failed enough.

* * *

Only several months and only many lightyears away from all that, Voltron Paladin Shirogane Takashi startled awake with tears on his cheeks. Who’d been singing?

He felt very much like he’d just lost something.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end.  
> [Falls flat on the floor]  
> Don’t leave me in the dark, drop a line if you’re willing.  
> Thank you much for giving this a read.
> 
>  
> 
> Also. I finally made a [Tumblr...](http://sassafrassrex.tumblr.com/post/155123509475/all-pervading-corruption-setting-pre-voltron) In spite of cruising the how-to cheatsheets (don't laugh, I can hear you laughing), I don’t know exactly what it does...


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